 Just a four game slate for tonight in MLB DFS, but it seems to be a pretty good one. We actually do have some solid pictures we can choose from and some stacks that we like for today. So let's dive on in and get you set for this main slate. This is the Fanduel Live Q&A right here on the Fanduel YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and Twitter channels. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for numberfire.com here to take your questions live on air for the next half hour to get you set for tonight's four game main slate of MLB DFS. Before I start things off, a quick scheduling announcement. I will not be here tomorrow because I'll be flying out to Denver for the World Fantasy Baseball Championship, which is on Saturday and also Fanduel Fan Fest on Sunday. So Tom Vecchio has you covered here tomorrow for PM Eastern, YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, Twitter, he'll take your questions there and get you set for the slate of MLB DFS. Tom will also have you covered on Monday, both the solo shot and the Q&A. I'll still have the solo shot tomorrow morning so you can get my thoughts there on the slate for Friday night, but Tom will be with you tomorrow and Tom as always will do a fantastic job. So make sure you are subscribed on the Fanduel YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and Twitter pages. Let's start things off here with DJ on Facebook. DJ is asking John Gantt and Luis Castillo. Gantt is basically an opener. He's gonna be starting a bullpen game. So do not touch him for DFS. I wanna stack the Yankees tonight. So no interest in Gantt. It is all in on Castillo and Castillo is going to be the top pitcher for me for tonight. Brandon Dula is asking, what is your spirit animal? Someone asked, I think it was Michael on the stream yesterday who Brandon's spirit animal was. Oliver did a quiz. Oliver occasionally is on here and determined that Brandon's spirit animal is a giraffe and then made a giraffe with Brandon's face on which is now my slack avatar. So my spirit animal is a picture of the giraffe with Brandon's face. It's not an actual animal. It's a gudula wrath. That is my spirit animal personally. So Aaron says his is an otter, but I think that that is the word we're gonna work for today. So for me, it is the picture of Brandon as a giraffe is my spirit animal. Salvatore says the Marlins, Min Cashmi. I think that was the Charlie Morton one. So Salvatore, congrats on that. Hopefully you can run it back for tonight as well. Hopefully more than the Min Cash's time though. So congrats on the win last night for you, Salvatore. Jerry, how about the Yankee called Jim? Nick Pavedo was not great, Jerry. It was not fun. Pretty much first inning. Things did not go very well. So definitely kudos to you. I think that Savon may have been the one who was on the Yankees last night as well. Savon, best game for offense for today, limited selection because there are just four games. If I am trying to find one where I'd expect both teams to put up some runs, I'm probably looking at this Yankees Twins game because Jameson Tyone has been running up a lot of impactful contact recently, a lot of fly balls, a lot of hard contact. It's mostly about the Yankee side of things facing off with that bullpen game for the Twins. The Yankees are the main catalyst there, but I think the Twins should put some runs up on the board. So the Yankees are top stack. The Twins, at least a consideration I would say, Savon. So that game is probably the best one you want to turn to. Good park factor, decent temperature for tonight as well. Kyle, did you change your stacking strategy at all when there is such a small slate of games? I think you need to change your mindset a bit where we can't be as picky. Like if we're looking at tomorrow, pull up the slate here, I've got a lot of choices in terms of stacking, a lot of good choices. And I can go a lot of different ways. So I can be picky. I can cross awesome guys who make you too many strikeouts. I can cross awesome guys who are some guys who maybe have better bat at ball data here. I have to make constellations. So basically I just become less picky. If you're asking about like overall process changes, things don't change that much because my process, whether it's a small slate or a large slate, is trying to identify sources of upside. And I think that that is going to be the same regardless of the slate. The one thing that I may change is I may be more inclined to try to find stacks that will go a bit overlooked because I just have more time to look for those. So I think that that's why the Reds are pretty enticing for today. The Marlins has still not announced Zach Thompson officially as a starter yet. So keep that in mind. But I do think that the Reds great out pretty well. And then the Dodgers too is being a team we could turn to. So maybe being a bit more conferring on a four game slate where we're trying to find ways to be different when there are fewer options on a 14 game slate like tomorrow, you're going to naturally be different because like there are so many options here, you have to try a bit harder. So that's maybe the one differentiation there. Clint asked a question about Cincinnati and Savon also asked about Cincinnati too. So let's talk about Cincinnati here, facing off with Zach Thompson. Let's take a look at Zach Thompson's platoon numbers. It's a 10 start sample. So still not quite big enough to like fully buy into the platoon numbers for Zach Thompson as of yet. We can at least dig in here and see what things look like for him into that small sample. Again, don't look at world because it doesn't matter quite yet, but strikeout rates, slightly favoring lefties there and then the batted ball data about even. So I would say favorite lefties but be okay with righties. Let's go over here, pull up the Reds numbers versus righties this year. We'll let that refresh and we'll go over here and check out no Reds lineup as of yet. Oh, I guess that now. Okay, so make when Votto, Wistakis, the main lefties in this lineup for today. Looks like we can probably assume Thompson will go given that the Reds actually do their lineup out. So we can proceed forward as if he will be in there for today. So let's go over here. Alrighty. So Votto's probably gonna have to be number one just because he's been stupid good since the all-star break. So I feel like by default, we kind of gotta put Votto one. Naikwin, I wanna look into what he's been doing recently because he had that really hot start to the year, cooled off pretty tremendously, but now with Winker out, he's been moved back up in the order. So the situation for Naikwin is pretty good because he's at a high spot in the order in a matchup that I like on the right side of the platoon advantage. Let's go here from August 1st on for Naikwin. I don't know why I did that. 222 ISO for Naikwin in that time. Check out these stackcast numbers for him. In the month of August, he has a 15, 4% launch angle, 5% or five barrels, which is a 14% rate. Good hard hit data. So I feel pretty good about where Naikwin's at from a bad at ball perspective. So let's go here. Let's put Castillo in. Let's put Votto in. And then let's go with Naikwin, number two. Okay. And then I probably are gonna wind up going Castellanos. I think Castellanos is another guy where we want to dig into the recent form because he had that injury and a wrist injury is one that does stick out to me as being a concern because it does impact a lot of power. You can see some lingering stuff with wrist. We saw Alex Kiriloff this year have a wrist injury and then struggle once he was back in there. Strikeouts don't look too bad for Castellanos. Let's reassuring. And if we go here from the time that he returned to now, good launch angle, good barrel rate, decent hard hit rates, fine by me. So let's go with Castellanos in there. And okay. So we're choosing between India, Stevenson, Moustakis, Farmer, Areseda, Sakina. Okay. Let's go back over here. And again, Moustakis, probably a guy we want to look at too to see what he's been doing recently, just to judge how much confidence we should have in him given that we don't have a ton of a sample on him since he came back. So let's go to the game log here for Moose. And let's go over to the stack cast data. And do this. To this, only one barrel, 33% hard hit rate. He's popping up a lot. That's kind of concerning. 44% infield fly ball, right? That's not ideal. He is lofting it, but not a lot of hard contact. The strikeout rate is 32%. So Moustakis's numbers that's coming back are actually concerning to the point where I might bump him down a little bit. So let's look at a, Nick Nguyen, Stevenson and Farmer as being, or sorry, India, Stevenson and Farmer as being potential options here. India up to a 198 ISO, five stolen bases. That's obviously very good. Farmer 124, and then Stevenson against Reidey's 144. So India, let's see what the salary is on him. 39, pretty high. So, I guess maybe you go Stevenson if you want the salary savings on him. Yeah, $2,700. I think that could work. So if you need the salary savings, go Stevenson. If you are swimming in salary savings and have the ability to go with anyone you want, I would say India would be the preferred option there. Let's talk to John. How would you stack the Dodgers? Okay, so they're facing Taiwan Walker. I think that's a pretty good spot to go at them for today. So I do like the Dodgers overall. I'm assuming the lineup is not out as of yet because it is a West Coast game. So we can just kind of play things more straight up with the Dodgers for today. Let's pull up the projected lineup here for Los Angeles. Can't recall if Will Smith hit last night. So let's pull up him here. He, 18th. Okay, so he played last night. He's caught two in a row. He tends to catch three in a row. So he'll probably sit either today or tomorrow. I'd assume it'd probably be tomorrow, I guess, just because they tend to have him go three in a row. So let's go over here and pull up the Dodgers numbers. All right. So I'm probably gonna want Max Muncie in there if I can get there. He's kind of the guy you wanna turn to first within the stack. Seager, low salary or lower salary than he should be at least. Let's pull up Cody Bellinger. Check out his game log recently because it seems anecdotally as if things have been a bit better. This is way too many people. So let's go here and let's go do Bellinger. I'm just gonna pull up his game log quick and see what the bad at ball data looks like recently on Bellinger, given that he did have that really long slump coming out the injury, but it seems like it's things have been a little bit better recently. Okay, so still not a ton of power, but also not terrible. Hasn't had a lot of hard contact recently. So that's a little bit concerning. I'm okay bumping him down relative to others there. A.G. Pollock, 226 isos. I feel pretty good about that. Let's get him in there. And then you're looking at Turner, Smith, Bellinger. I'm probably gonna wind up favoring Smith most out of that group. Put him in catcher slash first base or there if you want to. I think this would probably be my favorite stack in the Dodgers, Muncie, Seager, Pollock and Smith. I'm okay being lower on Turner, not as much of a power guy versus righties being lower on Taylor. Again, not the biggest power guy either. Bellinger hasn't been hitting the ball as hard as I thought he had been recently. So I would say for a four player stack in the Dodgers, this is probably what I'd be looking at first. Salvatore saying, sitting second on the early site. Okay, good luck Salvatore. I know those games are starting to wind down. Just saw Dylan Cease let up a home run earlier, which was not exactly what I was looking for. Matt Olson had a dinger now too. So good luck to you, Salvatore. Hope it goes well for you. Sivan says Yankees again, man. I agree. I think I feel pretty good about them. Another is a Yankees question coming up. So let's jump ahead to that. Sivan asked, the Yankees lineup is out. How do you feel about Luke Voigt for tonight? Batting lead off, which is always a good thing. I think he's been hitting the ball a lot better since he came back. And I feel like this is actually a pretty good lineup for the Yankees, mostly because my arch nemesis, D.J. LaMakie was not in there. So that's always a good thing. So I think that we're set up pretty well here for the Yankees. We can play things straight up. So let's go over here and check out. I'm gonna look at righties first just because they're facing John Gantt. However, I would value guys who could hit both righties and lefties when stacking this Yankees team. I will say that Rugnet O'Dore, despite being a leftie, is a guy who does have good numbers versus lefties. So once Gant leaves, it could be a leftie who comes in and that's still gonna be okay because O'Dore can hit lefties as well. Judge, obviously gonna be towards the top here. I think the question is, do you wanna go judge or Gallo first? I'd probably go with Joey Gallo over Aaron Judge. Gallo's another guy who can hit both lefties and righties. So let's go Gallo one, judge two. I'll go Stanton three, Rizzo four, Luke Void five, Rugnet O'Dore six. Let's check out the salaries here on O'Dore and Voight. Yeah, they do say this quite a bit. So if you want to get to two of the studs pretty easily with Luis Castillo, I would be very comfortable going with Luke Voight at catcher slash first base, going over to O'Dore. And then if you do that, you've got 3267 left. So let's go over to Gallo and let's put judge in there. 2875 is definitely not like a ton of space to work with in terms of the rest of your lineup but I still think that's enough where you can feel okay about that. So I think it's a good stack for the Yankees but very in on Stanton as well within this team and very in on Rizzo as well. Jackie was asking, are you stacking the brewers today? I think that they're a good stack straight up. I would bet they'll be pretty popular. So keep that in mind. But yes, think that the brewers in that mix of the second stack to me it's the Yankees as the number one stack and then the brewers, reds and Dodgers all in the mix for the second stack. I would say though, I think the reds and Dodgers will be less popular than they should. So if I'm looking like single entry which we talk a lot about I would say I would bump up the reds and the Dodgers there because they could go overlooked. So Von is asking, if you had to stack the Twins how would you rate them for tonight? Is the Twins lineup out yet? It is not, okay. But in general, we come up with twins looking at Jorge Polanco has just been on a stupid, stupid tear recently so I can feel good about him. Salary on Polanco is $3,700, pretty high there. Donaldson 3000, that's not too bad. I wanna get one of the catchers whether it's Mitch Garver or Ryan Jeffers. I think that given the power they have they're both gonna get options. So I would say you're looking at probably Polanco one if you can get there. Donaldson two, Kepler three, Rooker four. And then I want one of the catchers after that. Garver or Jeffers, whoever winds up catching I rank all those guys above snow. They're all above a rise as well. So that's where I'm looking at for the Twins for today. Let's go down to Bill. Hey, Jim, are you doing a NASCAR video this week? Yes, I am recording that tonight. It'll be up on the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast each night and it'll also stream live here on YouTube tomorrow at 10 30 through the magic of technology. It'll be streaming live on YouTube despite the fact that I'm not there. So yes, NASCAR podcast tonight on the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed and quote unquote live on YouTube. I'll mention that there that's not live so I'm not misleading, but either way that will be up today. Tonight, Bill on the podcast feed and on YouTube tomorrow as well. So Vaughn best value pick today for a hitter. I think that Voight's probably gonna be up there $2,900. Really good number for him. I forgot what Nikwin salary was. Let's go to check him out. Tyler Nikwin is $2,800. Not as low as I was expecting it to be. I think that Odore is up there as well. Garver, Rooker, they're in play for the twins. And then let's pull up the Brewer's line to see what the salaries are on some of their guys. Because again, I do like them pretty decent amounts. Garcia is 3,000 has been hitting the ball pretty hard recently. So that's enticing. William Dom is $3,300. Eduardo Escobar, 36, that's fair. It's about where he should be. Is there any, Luis Arias is batting seventh. Always on board with that. He is, oopsies, where is he? Where is Luis Arias? $2,700, okay. So I can consider that. I would say Voight is one. Odore two, you're looking at like Rooker and Garver there as well. If I had to pick one, I'd go Voight among the guys below $3,000. Aaron says, nice call with Muncie ranking among the first baseman yesterday. Pricing not restricted back to Muncie. So we look at first baseman, not considering salary and not just the Brewer's as I have right now. These are really good. So I think you're looking at Rizzo. You're looking at Muncie. You're looking at Vado. If you made me pick just one, I'd probably go Rizzo straight up just because I like that team so much for stacking and I wanna consider that always. So it'd probably be Rizzo, Muncie, Vato, and then the other guys after that. So yeah, he's up there once again as well. Julius, top two starters for tonight. The top two starters for me are going to be Luis Castillo and Brandon Woodruff. And honestly, I think it's a pretty big gap after them to the rest of the pack because we got two bullpen games to the night. That means we're down to six total starters. Don't wanna use Ty own that much. Don't wanna use Thompson. Don't wanna use Lester, obviously. Don't wanna use Taiwan Walker. So it's really just those two for me. I think that Castillo is pretty comfortably number one. So if I were multi-entering, I would say I wanna be around like 70% Castillo, 30% Woodruff, and then nobody else. I think that's the way to play things for tonight. If I'm taking single entry, I would say despite the fact I know Castillo will be the chalk, he will still be the guy I turn to. It's a revenge game for Luis Castillo. That should be all you need to know against his former organization in the Miami Marlins. So the revenge game factor, obviously a big thing here, but it's a great matchup at home. He's shown upside despite there's still been some inconsistency. So Luis Castillo number one, and then Woodruff is second, but I think he's pretty comfortably second for me. Let's talk to Jackie. I take some one offs to the Marlins. I expect at least one home run for them. Okay, so we're going against Luis Castillo. So Jackie and I actively fighting. Actively fighting right now as he's using guys against my boy, Luis Castillo. Castillo does a good job of suppressing fly balls, but does let up some hard contact. So Jackie, you and I going head to head for today. DJ, would you start Taiwan Walker with the fact that Dodgers are still doing a bullpen games night and for the outfield slot, who would you go? Newt Bar, Marlins, Sierra or McKinney? Yee. I'm not using Walker. Definitely not. I don't think that the bullpen game benefits him at all because I need strikeouts and the bullpen game does not benefit in that department. I think that I rather stack against Walker than use him as a pitcher. And then I guess I'd probably go McKinney if he plays among those guys, but those are not the most enticing options to me. I can't go Newt Bar. He's just no, no power at all. He's not in line. I guess he's fifth, baton fifth. He's facing Woodruff. So very low upside for me. Savon says, all these pitchers scare me. Very fair. Very fair, Savon. Woodruff is a guy who we've seen the Brewers, the Yank guys early, has happened to Woodruff in his most recent start because they're trying to conserve guys for October. That's a concern. Castillo has been inconsistent. So I think that for me, Savon, the takeaway of the pitchers being scary. And I agree with you is that I'm probably pushing just towards tournaments for tonight. So that's what I would do there. Jackie, pushing out some home run stats and then is Voigt playing today? Yes, batting lead off and in a good spot. So I like him quite a bit. Jerry says, Bellatrice has some type of injuries keeping him from hitting the ball well. Yeah, I think it's probably still like that. Is it the leg potentially lingering there? That's why I want to look at the current form and valuing that more. I think for me, it's more important to care about current form with guys who are hurt than anybody else because that's why I pulled up Castellanos, pulled up Moustakis because I want to see what they're doing coming off an injury, especially for injuries that can linger, Castellanos' can linger, Bellinger, seems like that's lingering too. So yes, I think that's a good thing to mention. With certain specific injuries, you definitely want to bump that up. Let's talk to Jade over on Facebook. Who do you think is going to do the pitcher that has the most strikeouts for tonight? Straight up, give me Luis Castillo, facing the Marlins at home, go super deep into games. That's something important to factor in when you're looking at strikeout projections. Pitch count for Castillo. He went 71 in one of those starts, but 107, 105, 101, 106. The Reds pushing for a playoff spot. They need lengthier. He is really good. So why not keep him out there? So I would say straight up, Luis Castillo, the only guy really in contention to have the most strikeouts would be Woodruff. And then if I had to rank someone else, it'd be Tyone, I guess, but kind of scary there too. So Castillo won Woodruff 2, Tyone 3 in terms of strikeouts for tonight. Let's talk to Savon looking towards some underdog teams today. How do you feel about the following if you were to use them? The Metz, the Cardinals, and Miami. Definitely not Miami. I don't feel, I feel like bookmakers would probably hire on Thompson than I am. Plus two, 20 for Miami. St. Louis's money line is plus 176. And then the Metz money line is plus 160. I honestly don't feel super inclined to take any of those personally. So if I had to pick one, maybe you go with the Cardinals just because they're at home. Maybe you go Metz because of the bullpen game thing, but I don't feel like it's a big draw for me. So I would probably be avoiding not betting the money lines on the other teams, but I think for me, I'm comfortable staying away from all of those. Savon, I agree with Jackie that the pitcher always gives me negative points. Yeah, it's weirdly like pitcher was the strength for me earlier on this year. Recently, it's been a bit more up and down. It's been annoying for sure, but could just be variance. My process hasn't changed. I'm hoping that thing swing back here recently, but yeah, I mean, we'll see how things shake for tonight. Jerry says, John Lester made an okay game if you want to save salary to pay up for the big guns on a short slate. Baseball, God's telling Jerry that Lester is going to be the guy. Okay, so Jerry is on Lester and Jerry had a good call last night. So we have some faith collectively as like a community here on the fan to a live Q and A. We have faith in Jerry. So he believes in John Lester. I can like kind of envision a path to a good game just because, you know, he does keep the ball on the ground and stuff like that. I would not still, I still would not use Lester and DFS though, because so few strikeouts. He actually is the lowest strikeout right on the entire slate. I think that because Lester does suppress fly balls a bit, I think that could be another justification for putting the Dodgers and the Reds above the Brewers in terms of stacking for today. So I think that that's kind of the one thing to consider there. But Jerry's faith in John Lester, Jerry's on a heater. So in Jerry, we trust. Sivan, should I stay away from James and Tyone as a pitcher? I am personally, but that is because I am okay with risk. And it's pretty risky to have a two-pitcher player pool for an entire slate. So for me personally, yes, I am staying away, but if you were to like rank out a third pitcher, Tyone would be that third pitcher. And, you know, Castillo, he's inconsistent, Woodruff could get piggybacked. He's on the road. All those things are important. So there is a, it is within the range of outcomes for tonight. The Tyone is the highest, the highest scoring pitcher for today. Personally, I don't care because like I just want to use those two guys. So I think have a more realistic path to be in the highest scoring pitcher, but he would be number three for me, Sivan, but that's not high enough for me to use him for today. Sivan is also asking no weather issues for tonight. There weren't too many this morning. Let's just look once again. We're all clear, good to go. So weather is good, which is always a positive. DJ says his home run calls are already at his Aquino. Tommy Edmund, Jake Cave, and Chris Taylor. I would rather get hit by a dump truck than pick Jake Cave. That's just the twins fan of me, DJ. That's not like an anti-JK cave thing. That's a twins fan thing in me. So there is no numbers backing behind that. So take that for what you will. I just, I can't. Jake Cave bothers me to no end. So there's that. Edmund, not a big fly ball guy, especially against a righty. So not there. Taylor, not a big fly ball guy either. Aquino can go deep. And with Winker being out, I think that our faith in Aquino staying in the game for the full time should be increased. I already said Aquino batting eighth in front of the pitcher. That's always a downside for me. So let's do some home run calls for today. I gave out my home run calls this morning. Those home run calls were Aaron Judge and Willie Adamus was the second one. Adamus batting second for the Brewers. So that is good. If I were to give out a third one, so we got those, those are both kind of boring because like they're pretty obvious. If I were to give out a third one to be a bit more fun, does Tyler Niquin count as fun? Not sure if it counts. I kind of feel good about what he's been doing recently though. So I'm going to go Tyler Niquin as my third home run picks. The official home run picks, Aaron Judge, Willie Adamus and Tyler Niquin for today. DJ says, Kay was good last year. He was, he was not bad. So you're right. Again, this is the twins fan of me, DJ. This is not the rational human being. I'm not a rational human when it comes to the twins. So there we go. Jerry says his home run call is Judge Justin Turner and Moustakis. Okay. No objections there, Jerry. I think all those are pretty good. DJ wants Michael Conforto against the bullpen game. Okay. So let's get these Diggers to Flow, Diggers to Fly for tonight for all of us here on the FanDuel Live Q&A. That is all that we have here for today. But as mentioned, Tom Becchio back with you once again tomorrow to get you set for the slate of MLB DFS. If you want the sheet for tomorrow, here it is. Feel free to screenshot that to get your research started before Tom comes on at 4pm. YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and Twitter also follow Tom on Twitter at DFS underscore Tom. Can I have you for that? For the solo shot on Monday and the solo shot or the Q&A on Monday too. I will have the solo shot tomorrow morning, recording it tonight, up tomorrow morning on the FanDuel YouTube page at nine, but up on the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed before that. So if you want to get it early, go to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed, subscribe there, check out that and the NASCAR podcast. Austin Swain will have UFC tomorrow morning as well. So a lot of reasons to subscribe over there. If you have questions for me, I am on Twitter at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. Also, if any of you are in the Denver area feel free to swing by for the FanFest on Sunday that's at the Broncos Stadium in Power Field. I'll be out there doing a sports betting panel with Liv Moods and Aaron Dolan. So if you're in the Denver area, come by free chain smokers concert that night. So feel free to swing on by and say hi, would love to talk to anyone in the Denver area. Big thank you to Joy Affleck, our video producer for today. Thank you Joy as always and a special thanks to Kimchi for Cat as well for helping us out also. Thank you Denver for tuning in. Good luck to you tonight. We'll talk to you once again next week. This has been the FanDuel Live Q&A.